Baby grand

Hello 2015! Happy new year everyone! Guess what I did yesterday to welcome in what is sure to be the best year yet?

I finished a very small version of Bonnie Hunter's Grand Illusion mystery quilt! 

This is just four blocks, and the full quilt is 25, but this used up all the pieces I made as the mystery went along. I knew I couldn't do the whole big quilt at this time of year, but I wanted to play along, so I made a few of each unit. I had fun doing it, plus I ended up with an extremely festive baby quilt. This measures about 40 by 40.

I changed a few things in my quilt. The center of the star in each block is supposed to be a 4-patch, but I chose to use a solid square instead. I think it emphasizes the star better and it gives the eye a place to rest in this very busy quilt. Also, Bonnie's border is pieced, but I never made those units, so I just used up the rest of the yellow I had to make the outer border. It's not the same, but I think it works. I have just enough green left to bind the edge.

It was fun and non-stressful to make just enough to play along and I highly recommend it for the next mystery. It was also a very pleasant way to spend a few hours on New Year's Day while there was nothing else to do but watch football. Or clean, but who wants to do that?

This is all I have leftover!

That was it for this week! This weekend we may get some snow, but we will be taking down the tree and packing up the Christmas decorations. The holidays are always fun, but you still have to clean up when the party's over.

Be sure to come back Tuesday for the start of the Classic Stitches row quilt BOM. I'll be putting a new tab at the top with more information later this weekend.

Have a great weekend, everyone! Happy stitching!

Linking to Sarah at Confessions of a Fabric Addict and Amanda Jean at crazy mom quilts.  Bonnie Hunter is also having a linkup for the Grand Illusion projects--stop by and see some seriously amazing quilts!

Sew relaxing

Hi all! How is your Christmas sewing going? I am gradually relaxing. There is still a lot of Christmassy stuff to do (cookies!), but the grades are in and I have a little bit of time to play. Plus, I get to learn some new things that I usually don't have time for. For example, this weekend I learned that I can't watch The Walking Dead. I know a lot of people love it, but it's definitely not for me. Good to know.

Since I finished the candy row on the winter quilt, I started a new row--snowman faces!

Aren't these fun? I haven't decided for sure, but I think I'm going to applique some eyes instead of using buttons. I think it would look better all around, plus no lost eyes, which would make for sad snowmen. I have a few more to make, but this is a fun row.  (Patterns available HERE or HERE.)

I also did a few of step 3 for Bonnie Hunter's mystery quilt: 

These were super-easy and I think the colors look really good together.

I'm liking this mystery more and more because I don't think I've seen these units together before. This seems really original and different.

That's all that's happening in my sewing room right now! Well, I'm also working on finishing the triangle quilt, which has been in progress forever. At least that's what it seems like. But it's moving along, which is something. I would have a picture, but we have been socked in by fog for the last several days. Yes, fog!

Hope everyone is holding it together with the holiday projects. I know for sure I will not be sewing for a couple of days because the electric company is shutting off our power all day (really, 8 am to 3 pm!) to replace the neighborhood transformer. In December, in Wisconsin. Nice planning, guys! We'll be hitting the movies and anywhere else that will be warm (and have wifi). Which means no cooking for me, so maybe it's not all bad!

Linking to Linky Tuesday, Fabric Tuesday, WIP Wednesday, and Let's Bee Social. And Bonnie Hunter's link-up, too, just for the fun of it. Stop by and wave!

Projects in pieces

Hello everyone! Welcome back to my little corner of the Internet. For today's post, I was going to make a list of the things that are stressing me out right now, but the list itself made me panicky. Instead, how about we ignore all of that and look at pretty quilty pictures instead?

I've gotten started on the next row of the winter quilt, which is a row of candy pieces:

I changed mine up a little bit from the pattern. The pattern has them all in the same fabric, while I just grabbed a bunch of bright scraps for mine. I know I want the pieces to alternate "up" and "down" so that it 'waves' across the quilt, but I can't decide if I should still put the spacer pieces in the row or not.  The partial row on top in this picture has the spacers while the bottom one does not. Which do you like better?

I also made some of step 2 of Bonnie Hunter's mystery quilt:

I strip pieced these and it went pretty well. (Tutorial with great pictures is HERE.) These are all that I'm making of this step for now as well. (No stressing out over quilt projects, remember? This is my new rule--for myself, of course! Feel free to bask in as much anxiety as you feel comfortable with.) I suspect these pieces are for a border because they remind me a lot of the border pieces in Lazy Sunday (which I haven't made but hope to one day). I guess we'll find out!

Finally, I did work some on the triangle quilt. I decided to make it one row longer, which means more triangles. I swear these are the last of them:

These better be last of them, because I'm starting to be tired of it, even if it is pretty bright and happy. What was I thinking, making 6-inch blocks? Should have known it would take a ton of them to make a decent-sized quilt. Good thing I was never a math major.

Hope everyone gets some sewing done this week! Those holidays are coming, faster than we think!

Linking to Linky Tuesday, Fabric Tuesday, WIP Wednesday, and Let's Bee Social. Happy sewing!

Playing with blocks

Holy cow, it's December.

Anyone else feel a little panicky about that? Just me? Oookay.

So, we are stuck in the deep freeze again. The hubs and I visited our daughter on the East Coast for Thanksgiving, which was fabulous, and then got home to the single digits. Welcome home! It's sunny, though, so it's not all bad. As long as it stays sunny, I'll be okay. No promises for when it snows again.

I have been playing with a few things in the sewing room. Really trying hard not to stress out over any project, so I've done a little bit on a lot of projects. Take a look!

The first 16-inch section of the wintry/frozen Drunkard's Path quilt (which really needs a name if anyone has a suggestion):

Gosh, this will be pretty. I decided to keep the Fairy Frost. And it has my favorite sewing feature--very little matching! (Yes, I see that one block is pressed wrong. I promise it isn't stitched wrong.) For anyone who's interested, the pink and green one went to the quilter this past week. Those last few pieces went together okay. I promise not to make the same mistake again.

(Also, does anyone know anything about the specialty machine foot for piecing curved blocks without pins? I just want to know if it works, because it's kind of pricey. It would be worth it to make this faster, but only if it actually works. Thanks!)

More progress on the winter quilt from Cindy at Quilt Doodle Doodles:

Another tree! I thought this would finish the center row, but I actually messed up and made the same tree twice. Oops. There are three trees, each slightly different, but I lost track of which ones I had already made.

The mistake will be really easy to fix, or maybe I'll just leave it. We'll see how motivated I am. The rest of the quilt is rows of repeated patterns, so I'm not sure which one I feel like making next. I guess we'll find out next time I feel like sewing on this. (Buy the patterns HERE or HERE.)

Okay, I know I said that I was waiting to make Bonnie Hunter's mystery quilt, but I was feeling left out after doing the last several mysteries, so I made a couple of blocks for the first step:

They're just so colorful, I couldn't resist! I made ten of these blocks and that's all I am making for now. I figure that this way I can play along without stress and have a start on the quilt if I want to make the whole thing. Worst case, I have potholders or a small table topper. Plus, the colorful blocks really brighten the place up, and who doesn't need that in the winter?

For the rest of the week, I plan to work like crazy on finishing the RSC14 triangle quilt. It really wants to be finished! It's been nagging at me all day. "Put down those curvy blocks and come work on me! I have nice straight seams!"

I may be a little tired right now.

Anyway, hope everyone has a really good and productive week! If it warms up a little, we will be putting our Christmas lights up this week, and I have definitely started shopping. I am starting to get a little holiday spirit!

Linking to Linky Tuesday, Fabric Tuesday, WIP Wednesday, and Let's Bee Social. Happy sewing!